


Where the River Flows

by acheaptrickandacheesyoneline



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Earth two, F/M, Follows Flash Canon through 2x05 then veers off on its own, Gen, Sort of follows Arrow canon through 4x04 before going off and forging its own way, Spoilers for season 2 of the Flash, Team Arrow, Team Flash, au but not au, spoilers for season 4 of Arrow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5198678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acheaptrickandacheesyoneline/pseuds/acheaptrickandacheesyoneline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oliver Queen knows better than anyone that you can't change the past. Time only ever moves like a river to the ocean: forward</p>
<p>But not even Team Arrow ever considered that the river occasionally branched out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic that was originally going to be a short one-shot before it took over itself. I am at work on a Part Two even as I am posting this, but I have no solid date for when it will be done.
> 
> Thank you to so-caffeinated for taking time out of YH(N)FTV and her OBB writing to take a look over the rough draft, find inconsistencies, and catch my verb tense issues.

_ Breath tight in his chest, he ran through the undergrowth and trees that surrounded him. At this point, he knew the land well enough that he didn’t have to pay attention to where he placed his feet. He automatically adjusted his gait to fit the terrain. The continual banging of a pouch against his leg reminded him that the flint he had so carefully kept safe for three years was still there. A leatherman that had seen better days still hung from his belt. The real comfort he had came from the solidarity of two blades that were strapped to his lower arms. They weren’t perfectly balanced, so would never throw accurately at a long distance, but they were his.  _

__

_ Bursting onto the beach, it was quick work to light the signal fire he had been building in anticipation of the day that there would finally be a ship close enough to see it. Lifting a hand to shade his eyes from the sun, he gave a small smile. It was time to go home. _

__

_ Or at least see what remained of the city and life he called home after three years away from it. _

 

 

* * *

 

 

Before last year, Oliver had no idea that there was anything in the world that couldn’t be explained. Then Barry had been hit with a bolt of lightening and woken up with the ability to run faster than the speed of sound. Not to mention that there was - or had been, at least - a magical hot tub in the Middle East that could bring people back to life, if a bit more bloodthirsty than they had been prior to the revival. Or a guy merging with another to fly with fire. 

Time travel, even, was apparently a thing now. 

Which lead to Oliver watching Felicity having a three hour Skype call from Star with Team Flash  as they discussed the different versions of what time travel could entail.

All he could do was smile at how excited she got at the possibility of time travel, but froze when alternate universes were mentioned. She was so caught up in her conversation that she didn’t notice at the time. But later that night, because she knew him better than anyone, Felicity met his eyes and asked “Hey, what’s up?”

How could he explain the thoughts rushing through his mind. That somewhere, there might be a universe where Shado didn’t die. Where Slade never killed his mother and Thea didn’t leave with Merlyn. Where an Undertaking never leveled part of the Glades and Tommy...and that Tommy was still alive. He wasn’t naïve enough to think he had a chance of seeing that world, but the thought there was a chance. It was a comfort, if he was honest. Maybe he never got on the yacht, or got on the yacht but there was no explosion, or got on it and it had sunk and he did die which meant that Tommy married Laurel and had a house full of kids as they talked about Uncle Ollie and how much he would have cared for them.

Her hand was still running through his hair and he closed his eyes, taking the moment of peace her touch always offered. When he opened his eyes, she was still staring at him, question in her eyes, but otherwise quiet, letting him choose to answer or not in his own time. 

“Multiple Universes,” he sighed out after a moment.

“Heavy thinking right before bedtime. Unless it’s about Doctor Who reruns, and even then, Doomsday is still not a good episode to end a night on.” She smiled at him, and he couldn’t help but give her one back, even though it was halfhearted at best.

“Just thinking there might be a place out there where I didn’t cause...Where people I care about are still alive,” he said softly. 

“Oliver.” Her voice was so quiet that he barely heard it, but there was no mistaking the tone in her voice. That mix of love, and something that he might have called pity if he didn’t know her as well as he did after so many months together. Meaning that she was upset on his behalf as he tried to blame everything that had happened in the past on himself, to carry the world on his shoulders though he wasn’t Atlas. She laced her hand through his and brought it up to leave a light kiss on his knuckles. 

“I know, Felicity. Not my fault. Not really.” He gave a one shoulder shrug as he pulled her into his arms, wrapping them around her before he dropped a kiss into her hair. “Still doesn’t help that…”

“That you miss your mom.”

“And Tommy.”

He felt her nod. “And Tommy.”

While Felicity drifted easily into sleep, Oliver found himself spending most of the night staring at the ceiling. The lights from the buildings in Starling--Star--City made a play of shadows through the windows, telling a story of a city that was living even as it was dying. His thoughts shifted between what his mother would think of Felicity, what Tommy would make of him running for Mayor, Sara and Laurel and Captain Lance being a family instead of at one another's’ throats or dead. His girlfriend eventually rolled off of him and burrowed deeper into her pillow before letting out a quiet noise. It wasn’t a snore. He would never be so crass to say that Felicity snored. Especially after she adamantly protested that she had never and would never snore in her life.

He rolled onto his side, pillowing his head on his bent arm. Maybe he would send an email to Cisco tomorrow. See if there was a way he had come up with to see into the different...whatever they were. Dimensions, universes, worlds. Oliver wasn’t sure of the correct terminology, yet another thing to add to the growing list of things he never thought he would have to know. At least words were better than using a bow as a weapon, torture, and survival on an island in the North China Sea. 

The bright green numbers of their alarm clock on the dresser across the room lit the room as he rolled onto his back again. Three thirty in the morning. Felicity would have to be up in another two and a half hours after only going to bed an hour ago. He didn’t deserve her, he really didn’t. But he wasn’t going to be too worried over the clerical era that Karma must have made on his behalf at this point.  Hopefully the other versions of himself out there hadn’t taken so long to realize that Felicity was it for them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ The city welcomed his return like the long lost son that he was. His family refused to let him out of their sight for the first few days that he was back, but he could hardly blame them. Almost three weeks had passed since returning before he started going back out into society, the crush of people sometimes still being too much for him. _

__

_ Laurel Lance, as it turned out, was gone. She had left the city a year after he had been pronounced dead, taking a job on the East Coast somewhere with a law firm that had more last names than any company had a right to. Her sister, well, God only knew what had happened to her. The last he knew was when she had been in college and had been talking about possibly joining one of the Letter Agencies in DC. But in the intervening years between when he had graduated and then come back to the city, there was no telling what had happened. Quentin didn’t want to talk about it, nor to him, and he respected that. The amount of things the Lance family had been put through because of him when he had been younger, more wild… There was a term for it his mom had used when he was finally old enough to understand why she kept in contact with people they never spoke to but wanted to maintain a façade of a relationship with. He kept on Christmas Card terms with the Lances. He and Laurel did briefly when she returned to town for the true memorial service that happened after his return. Even when they found themselves facing one another, neither knew what to say. A nod, a handshake, murmured words that might have been a greeting or an apology and they went their separate ways again. _

__

_ Everything and nothing was the same. His touchstone became the knives from the Island still worn around his forearms, under suits and shirts. A deadly security blanket he knew he wouldn’t need again. His parents understood. They didn’t ask him to stop wearing them and eventually, a year or two after he returned, there was a morning where he didn’t feel the need to put them on. _

 

 

* * *

 

 

As it turned out, STAR labs did not actually have a way to track who was who or where they were in the other universes.  Multiverse , Oliver reminded himself. That was the word they were going with, according to Cisco. It wasn’t the word he would have chosen, but it also wasn’t his city or situation. 

He never thought he would be thankful for having just evil criminal masterminds who were blackmailing the police and killing civilians. No need to have specialty containment for that. But Oliver still found himself on the train to Central City because they had asked for help from Felicity and it was far better to go via train than have Barry run them there. He and Barry did train for a bit outside of town when Felicity started talking computer with Cisco and Caitlin. The apparent resurrection of Doctor Wells threw him for a moment, but no, it was just a Wells from an Alternate Universe which you could access through a portal in the basement of STAR Labs.

You know, no big deal.

Caitlin and Felicity were talking in one of the side rooms of the cortex when Oliver got back to the labs, and Barry mentioned something about a date before running off again, leaving him alone with Cisco. “So...” Cisco began. “You and Felicity, huh?”

Oliver nodded. “We tried to do...something about it last year. Before Ra’s. But I didn’t think that I could…” He took a deep breath. “I was worried she would get hurt because of me.”

“Understood. Barry was the exact same way with Patty before he actually, you know, started doing the dating thing.”

It was a good thing Barry hadn’t internalized the ‘We don’t get the girl’ talk from last year to the extent Oliver had. He had been so wrong about it. “Felicity ended up being the one to save me.” He glanced in her direction and smiled at the memory. “She flew in with the ATOM suit with her usual perfect timing.”

“Dude, she  _ flew _ the ATOM suit? I mean, I knew she was awesome, but that is taking it to the next level. She  _ totally _ is at the point where she needs a name.”

“It’s an ongoing discussion,” Oliver responded dryly. 

“Overlord? No, seems too mad scientist…” Cisco muttered. “I wonder she exists on one of the other Earths. I’ll have to ask Jay if he ever decides to come back here. Hopefully she’s not a supervillain.” He spun in his chair until he was looking up at Oliver, eyes narrowed. “She would make a terrifying supervillain. Smoak and Mirrors. That would be her name if she was evil.”

“If who was evil?” Felicity asked. 

“Cisco is giving you a name for it you ever go evil.”

She wrapped her arms around his waist as she came up to him, pressing her forehead into his upper arm before giving it a small kiss. “Good to know that I have options in case saving Star City and being the Mayor’s  girlfriend ever gets too boring.”

“I think we’re all set here, Felicity. Thank you again for coming out all this way. Being able to track what portals are more active than others will hopefully help us see what other doubles Zoom has sent through.” Caitlin smiled at them all as she came down the steps from the small lab. “And then we don’t have to worry about if Vibe over there is going to get a vision or not when the next one opens.”

“Backup plans are good to have,” Felicity agreed.

Silence reigned for a moment as no one quite knew what to say, how to respond to the fact that Cisco had visions, that there was a portal two floors down, Barry had a date with someone who is not Iris and there was another speeding Metahuman as the villain du jour. 

“Anyone up for Big Belly Burger?”

Thank God for Cisco. As different as they might have been, Oliver had a feeling that Tommy would have gotten along with the mechanical engineer, if only so he had someone to talk television shows and make references that no one else would get. 

He followed Team Flash and Felicity out of the labs and into the streets until he slid into a booth with the comfort of french fries, burgers and milkshakes and sticky vinyl seating around a formica tabletop surrounded by family.

When he and Felicity left to go back home, he stopped Cisco before he got onto the train and before the engineer could walk away. “If you see anyone in your visions…” he began before trailing off, not knowing how to voice what he was trying to say. “If you hear of a Thomas Merlyn, please let me know.” 

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Cisco promised him, one of the few times Oliver had ever heard him talk without humor in his voice. “For any other member of your family too.”

Oliver sucked in a deep breath before nodding his thanks and getting onto the train.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thank you to so_caffinated for correcting my tenses and yelling at me for ending this story where I did. I have a feeling some of you might join her in that....

 

_The company was thriving. With his father stepping down as CEO, and his mother wanting to work more with charities in the Glades, it was the perfect time to fully resume control of the family legacy. On paper, the two companies were one, but that was only important to stockholders and the board. To the general public, Consolidated and Global were the same as always, just doing a lot more business and offering far more jobs._

_He stared out of the window of his office in on the top floor, watching the sunset lighting the sky with a red glow. Resting a hand against the glass, he closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. The building still had the new carpet smell that seemed to last for months before it was suddenly gone. It had officially opened last week, though the ribbon cutting ceremony and all the pomp and circumstance hadn’t been until today._

_A stray thought that things could have been different, that they both could have been here celebrating forced itself to the forefront of his mind before he shook it off. Now wasn’t the time for that. Tonight was supposed to be for celebration, both for the opening of the new location, and for the large building in the distance. STAR Labs was starting their newly finished accelerator up tonight._

 

 

* * *

 

Earth Two was a universe where Malcolm Merlyn didn’t exist. Queen Consolidated still existed, but it was in the form of a subsidiary of Merlyn Global. Unlike the Merlyn Global of Oliver’s world, it truly was Global too, with offices in Hong Kong, Star City, and, as it turned out, Central City. The CEO also made it a point to visit these offices at least once a year, and to visit Star Labs.

Oliver perused the articles that had been emailed to him during a quiet moment in the campaign office. Scans of obituaries for Rebecca and Malcolm Merlyn dated the same as when Rebecca had been shot on Earth One. They had been out for a date, he read. Survived by their son, Thomas Merlyn. He flipped to the next article on the folder, ignoring the brief sting that had him closing his eyes. The email and the attachments had come from STAR Labs that morning, organized by date and time. Oliver had printed out everything, using almost an entire ream of paper that one of the interns then had to replace before more of the campaign donation pamphlets could be printed. He would have Felicity delete the email and everything later so the only copies that remained would be the ones in his hand. Electronic safety on top of the fact that he had never gotten used to reading things on computer screens.

Tommy was Thomas on Earth Two. He had grown up with the Queen Family and the only thing that had stopped him from taking that as his actual last name was that he wanted to hold onto a family name that would otherwise no longer exist. The articles were full of stories of Thomas’ exploits in the early 2000s including some that were very familiar even to Oliver. His name was peppered into those stories here and there, as either an accomplice or brief mention in the form of “also arrested with”. With the exception of both his parents dying, Thomas’ life was nearly an exact mirror of his Tommy.

A large ad that took up almost half of a newspaper page made him chuckle. It was a “congrats on graduating” message from the Queen family to Thomas and Earth Two version of himself. “Good to know somewhere out there I got a degree,” Oliver said quietly. It looked like they had both gotten a Bachelor degree in Business, Thomas focusing on the management end of it while that Oliver had taken to advertising and media.

A copy of a press release was next. Normally boring, Oliver skimmed it, taking in the important parts with a trained eye. Thomas Merlyn would take position as CEO of Merlyn Global, but would happen after a year off after college. Oliver Queen--it was strange reading about a him that he didn’t know--would join Thomas in the year off of everything before taking position with Queen Consolidated. While they were both gone, Robert and Moira would keep their temporary positions as heads of the two companies until handing over the reigns once they returned.

A small snippet of an article regarding Thomas’ more colorful experiences caught his eye. Oliver had to read the few sentences at the end three times before they actually made sense. _Since beginning their trip around the world in the Queen Family Yacht, communication from Merlyn and Queen had been sporadic. When a scheduled check-in with the coast guard in the North China Sea passed without communication, a search lasting three weeks was started. At the time of this article, it is assumed that the_ Queen’s Gambit _was lost in the storm that swept through the area without warning the night before the check-in was due._

Articles detailing funerals, memorial funds. A new CEO being appointed for Merlyn Global because the Queens couldn’t keep up with running it, Consolidated, and maintain a hunt for the yacht that had taken both of their sons from them.

Knocking on the door into his office brought him out of the near comatose state he was in. Oliver looked up and saw that Felicity was there, head tilted slightly. “Ready to head home,” he asked her, rising from his chair.

“I am if you are. Everything is running fine downstairs and hey, for once there isn’t an emergency board meeting at Palmer Tech.” She paused as Oliver put on his suit jacket and then offered her his arm. “You were pretty deep into your reading there, you didn’t even hear me calling your name.”

“Star Labs,” he said quietly into her ear. Both he and Felicity had agreed that it was for the best if they didn’t openly advertise their acquaintance with the Lab during the mayoral campaign. It was already suspect enough that the Green Arrow returned to the City at the same time Oliver Queen had returned; they didn’t really need to add in knowing the Flash. At least not until the campaign was over.

Maybe by then he would have a drink named after him like Barry had. Or a day. He kind of wanted a day.

“They sent me over information from Earth two earlier today,” Oliver said, once the door to the car was closed. “I’m not sure how the computer systems between the two work-”

“Apparently Harry gives them USB drives,” Felicity broke in. “Caitlin or Barry, or I guess even Cisco, will ask for information before Harry goes through the portal in the basement. He’ll download the info onto a flash drive and then bring it back.” Oliver looked at her for a moment before she closed her eyes and groaned. “Pun really not intended about flash drives and Barry.”

He traced mindless patterns on the back of her hand with his fingertip. “Puns aside, I was reading through some of it when you came in.”

“Hence bringing the folder home with you. That’s better than what I was worried about.”

“What were you worrying about?”

“That not even a month and a half into your campaign you were already forgetting your promise of not bringing day job or night job back home with you.”

“I don’t think I could ever forget that promise,” he assured her. “You using your Loud Voice is a really good way of making me remember something for the rest of my life.”

Felicity laughed, and a smile spread across his face in response. “I think you’ve forgotten things I’ve told you before. Last year with assassins and ninjas comes to mind.”

“Oh, I didn’t forget. I just didn’t think that there was another way at the time so I chose to ignore.” He squeezed her hand. “Glad I was wrong.”

“Good to know you’ve learned that I am always right.”

“Yes. You are a wise sage and I should listen to every word that you say.” Neither of them were able to keep a straight face for long after that.

 

* * *

 

 

 

_On top of regular criminals, there were now super powered criminals now too. Metahumans, as Dr. Wells had called them in the first press conference after the disaster that had been the particle accelerator._

_STAR Labs was working on ways to protect the everyday person from them. Ways to protect people from things like giant Land Sharks, a woman who could control starlight--how she didn’t realize that she would have had a better career as someone working in alternative energy sources than as a criminal escaped him--or the man who could absorb radiation. That was a Meta that would have been an excellent addition to any first response team in case of nuclear damage. But no, apparently crime was the preferred way to go about things._

_As far as he knew, there was one Metahuman who made it a point to work with the police and stop the others, one known as_ The Crimson Comet _._

_P_ _erhaps now would be a good time to see if he and Wells could combine resources in making better protections for everyone involved._

_He started to wear one of his knives again._

 

* * *

 

 

Long past the time normal people should have been in bed and asleep, Oliver was still awake. Felicity was asleep upstairs and rather than risk him waking her up with his tossing and turning, he had decided lay down on the couch until his mind eventually quieted enough for him to be able to sleep.

That decision had been made almost and hour and a half ago at this point though, and it didn’t seem like sleep would be coming soon. Wearing only his boxer-briefs, Oliver went to stand out on the balcony, leaning on the railings as he looked out at the city. It wasn’t as cold as it had been on the Island some nights, but the air was quickly gaining the bite that came with late fall. Thea and Laurel were the ones in the field tonight, with Diggle working the coms and computers, giving him and Felicity a night off. It had been Thea’s idea to give it to them, a pointed look in his direction when she mentioned she thought the two of them could use some time for a nice dinner together, like a date.

Back in Ivy Town, Oliver had been positive that proposing to Felicity was the right thing to do, and that it had been the right time. With the return to the City and dealing with the Ghosts and Darhk, trying to figure out how a mayoral campaign ran and Felicity taking over as CEO for Palmer Tech, attempting to keep it from going under, their lives seemed too busy for him to ask her. God, he had wanted to do it right. He remembered talking with Tommy in some of their less inebriated times about how to propose. It had been a vague nebulous idea then, the understanding that Oliver would marry Laurel because it was just the way things were going to be, and that Tommy would find someone that cared for him in a way that Rebecca used to care for Malcolm before it all went to shit. Tandem skydiving had been one idea, but he and Felicity had experienced enough leaping out of planes for a lifetime. Each idea had been more extreme than the last, culminating in he and Tommy somehow making robots or something, God, he didn’t even remember. Just that it had made the two of them laugh so hard they had fallen over, unable to breathe.

“Oliver?” A sleepy-voice from inside.

“Coming in,” he told Felicity. She was standing by the stairs, wrapped in one of the colorful quilts from their bed when he came inside. “Hey,” he said, coming to stand by her. She was one step above him, so they were close to the same height, even though her feet were bare. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Well, someone took my personal space heater away when he woke up.” She brought her arms up around him, wrapping him in a hug and a blanket. “I would ask if you were okay, but if you’re awake this time of early morning, I’m guessing that something is on your mind.”

Oliver leaned into her hug, resting his head on her shoulder. “Just couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to keep you awake.”

“I would rather be awake with you than asleep without you.” A beat. “That was cheesy and I am not going to apologize for it."

“I love you.” He might have been quiet, but he was smiling. This was right, the two of them. Felicity let out a squeak when he hauled her up into his arms, the quilt still folded and draped over them both as he carried her up the stairs.

“Have I mentioned lately how glad I am that you are made of nothing but muscle?”

“You might have hinted it earlier this evening in the shower.” He dropped her gently onto the bed before crawling in behind her.

Wrapping her arms over his, she snuggled into his chest. “Mmm. You’re right. I think I might have been doing more than hinting towards the end there. I don’t remember for sure. I think you broke my brain there for a bit.”

“Well, I am glad it wasn’t broke for good. I happen to like your brain. And everything else about you.” Oliver leaned over and slipped the drawer of his nightstand open. It was one of those drawers that was always whisper quiet when it was used, something he and Felicity had both wanted when they had first been looking for nightstands and bedside tables. No noisy grinding drawers to wake either up them up when the other needed something. He quickly grabbed out what he was searching for and set it on the pillow behind him before wrapping his arms around Felicity again. ‘Have a question for you.”

“At 4:15 in the morning?” Her eyes were already closed and her voice was getting the sleep-slurred sound that made him ache with how much he loved her.

“It’s a pretty easy question. Only needs a one word answer.”

“No, I’m not allowing decaf in this house.”

He reached behind him. “Felicity Smoak. Do me a favor and open your eyes.” Oliver fought back the grin that threatened to appear when he felt her breath catch before rushing out all at once. He would smile like an idiot in a moment if everything went right. “We’re already partners in every sense of the word. Will you marry me?”

“Oliver Jonas Queen. You are not seriously asking me to marry you at four in the morning while I have gunk in my eyes and my hair's a mess and I am wearing my MIT shirt for pjs, are you?”

He froze. Oh shit. This was not at all what he had planned. He began to pull away from her, realizing that he had made a mistake in asking her now instead of after a dinner at Table Salt with wine and dessert and actual bended knee. He had been so stupid. It wasn’t the right time after…

“Oliver.” Felicity’s gentle hand on his and her gentle voice in his ear stopped him from pulling away completely. She turned in his lap until she was facing him, looking right into his eyes. They were shining up at him. He couldn’t look away, even as both of her hands wrapped around his. “You’re getting lost in your head again. You didn’t even give me a chance to answer.” A watery smile, then, “Yes. Yes, I will marry you.”

They put his mother’s ring--Felicity’s ring now--onto her hand together.

 

* * *

 

 

_He hung up with his family. Explaining to them that he might not be reachable the next few days wasn’t always the easiest thing in the world, but it was better than having them worry that he had disappeared or was kidnapped or that his return from the Island was nothing other than a dream. There were times his mother still called him in the middle of the night, just to be reassured that he was there, that she still had a son. He didn’t want to make them worry. It was easier to just tell them it was a business trip rather than deal with having to explain the existence of portals and alternate dimensions or universes._

_The idea of multiple universes had never occurred to him as a real possibility. It was something reserved for science fiction and plot devices. Harrison swore they were real though, and that he had been to one. The Zoom that had been causing so much trouble in Central City was now wreaking havoc on the other Central City._

_He had been hesitant at first to ask Harrison what other differences there were between their universe and the other. The scientist had smiled in that way that screamed he had a secret and had asked him to come by STAR Labs the next day._

_So here he was, a duffle bag in one hand, Wells at his side, about to go through something that looked like it belonged on the transporter room of the Enterprise. While he wasn’t completely sure about what he would find on the other side, he had a few ideas._

_He only hoped that his city, his home, was still around in an alternate universe._

* * *

 

Oliver never felt a need to bring flowers to Tommy’s grave. A good bottle of tequila maybe, or a few fingers of scotch, but never flowers. But Tommy would have rolled his eyes at the waste of good alcohol. Instead Oliver had taken on Felicity’s custom of leaving a small stone atop the marker itself as a reminder to himself that he had been here.

He brushed the leaves off of the headstone and traced the letters of Tommy’s name. “I know it’s been a while,” he began, “but things have been busy. Would you believe I’m running for mayor? It’s not even on a platform of ‘all the alcohol and parties’. I think you would be proud. Turns out that Lance is. Which, shocker, I know. I guess old age does mellow a guy like him out every now and again. Isn’t that what we always hoped for?”

Oliver felt his knee begin to cramp up as he was squatting in front of the grave. Turning so the gravestone would be a backrest, he stretched out his legs with a sigh. “I think you would be happy for me, Tommy. I’m doing good in a way you always thought I could. I wish you were here to see it.” He stopped talking for a bit and just listened to the wind blowing through the nearly bare trees. “In other news, I’m getting married. And it’s not to Laurel. I meant what I said that night, that I didn’t have feelings like that for her anymore. I still regret what happened between the three of us at the end. But it’s to a woman I think you would like. I’ve told you about Felicity before. Well, for some reason, she said yes when I asked her. I gave her mom’s ring. I had always planned for you to be my best man when I finally did get married. I knew that I would want my best friend at my side to make sure that I was on time for everything.”

“Yeah, you were always shit at getting to places on time, weren’t you?”

Oliver froze as the voice from behind him popped the bubble that had been built between him and the world. He was on his feet in seconds, ready to fight what he knew would have to be a member of the League. No one alive had that voice.

But no. It really was. “Tommy,” he breathed out. 

 

* * *

 

 

_Oliver._

_God, it really was Oliver._

_Harrison hadn’t been lying when he had said that things were reversed on this world._

_His best friend was there in front of him for the first time since their boat sunk in the storm and it didn’t matter that it wasn’t the Oliver from his earth in front of him because it was still Ollie._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end of Part One.
> 
> I am working on Part Two (and, if things keep going the way they are, there may end up being a Part Three).


End file.
